What does Sun think about Google’s Java on Android?

Well, nobody knows for sure yet, but Slashdot (yes, again Slashdot) links to this article which has a few quotes from Sun officials.  Interestingly enough, it’s hard to say if Sun will support the open source platform

Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO of Sun, wrote a blog post congratulating Google on the day of Android’s launch.

or if it will insist on keeping mobile market defragmented

Sun also shared statements that Rich Green, executive vice president of software at Sun, made during Oracle Open World this week about Android. “We’re reaching out to Google and are anticipating they will be reaching out to us to ensure the software and APIs will be compatible–so deployment on a wide variety of platforms will be possible,” he said.

Green also said that Sun wants to work with Google to prevent creating a fractured mobile development environment.

3 thoughts on “What does Sun think about Google’s Java on Android?”


  1. I can guarantee you Sun won’t support a Java fork – but the code, and the spec are open source, so they’re not going to do anything to shut Google down. They’ll just clamp down their ability to call it Java – but given how Google treats trademarks and copyright, this may get messy.


  2. bucky,

    I tend to agree… I doubt that Google would have jumped on this whole Java bandwagon if there was any possibility for Sun to screw them up for it.

    On the other hand, Sun doesn’t look like a company totally getting into open source to me. Plus their own mobile platform.. yes, Sun supporting the fork sounds weird.. :)


  3. Of course Sun will have to “support” open initiatives, if only to keep their good impression (whatever there is of that left). But I seriously doubt that they will truly support Google in this opening of the mobile Java platform. Although if they did it would be of huge benefit to the mobile computing platform, and probably even their own business for that matter. :)

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